THE AMERICAN 1 star
Focus Features, Rated R
Best described as an artsy, sedentary crime thriller on mute, The American sheds just about everything essential to making its genre work, including action, tension and dialogue. OK, so George Clooney as Jack—aka Mr. Butterfly—is taking a break from the assassination business to hang out in the Italian countryside and converse in an unfamiliar language. But moving the primarily contemplative drama inside Jack’s silent head, where only a shrink and not the audience may have the necessary tools to pry his internal monologue loose, makes for a rather static viewer experience.
Suffering from what may be post-traumatic hitman disorder, Jack is a combo assassin and gun runner, who finds himself with a price on his own head. A nervous wreck, he ventures off to rural Italy to hide out from the mystery men in pursuit, and—move over Julia Roberts—enjoy a little scenic down time.
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When not exchanging ideas about guilt, innocence and the human condition with a suspicious priest, the existential hitman gravitates towards not a shrink but a couple of suspect women, including one enterprising female who’s into buying his designer weapons and a local.
Based on the book by the late UK novelist Martin Booth—from which the original story appears to have been left behind—and directed by Netherlands-born Anton Corbijn, The American plays out as if scripted in a filmmaker’s second language, far removed from any familiar cultural references. Indeed, there’s hardly a reason to believe Jack is an American as opposed to any other nationality, other than the nosy priest making scornful remarks to him that Americans have no sense of the past and live only for the present. Same goes for the film, which lacks any sort of back story.
George Clooney stars in The American
And in this what’s-on-your-mind moody mystery where self-indulgent silences upstage suspense, producer Clooney has also made the kiss-of-death mistake of miscasting himself in a leading role that’s decidedly not Clooney, as a glum protagonist devoid of any charisma. While this character is out of touch with his feelings, so are we, which is to say that an internalized crime caper that shuts the viewer out and a hitman who mostly mugs for the camera and does little else, just won’t do.
The American: Eat, Slay, Love.
